I am going into my Senior Year at college, starting on Monday!

 

However, I have gone through the past three years with some very good friends, Godly men, hard workers. We've been on the same team whenever possible ever since Strength of Materials in Sophmore Year.

But those friends have graduated - I will not be going through Senior Year with them. This video is a tribute to them.

 

 

 



 

 

The Prison - Part 4

“And you?” The gatekeeper asked. “Name?”
“John Barnhill.” I replied.

The gatekeeper again ran his hand up and down the ledger until he found my name. “John Barnhill: brought here by the watchman Unexpected.  Do you have anything with you?”

“Just my scroll from the King. I gave it to the watchman at the entrance.”

“Very well. Enter.” The gatekeeper replied.

I stood for a moment, unsure. I had thought that the scroll would have saved me from the prison – perhaps as a pardon that would allow me to go free. The gatekeeper realized that I was still standing there and looked up.

“Well?” He asked. “I’m not going to personally escort you to the door.”

“I thought… I thought…” I began, suddenly beginning to lose hope.

“All must enter the prison.” The gatekeeper sighed, as though he had given the speech a million times. “You are no exception.”

“Then… what was the scroll for?”

“You should know. Enter.”

So I did. I walked through the gaping doorway. It took my eyes a moment to adjust to the different light, but soon I could see clearly. The prison was an enormous cavern, reaching hundreds of feet over my head and hundreds of feet below where I stood. I took a small step forward to better survey the situation and found myself hurtling headlong through the air to the bottom of the cavern. I landed hard, yet nothing was hurt, nothing was broken, and nothing felt wrong, but I fell unconscious when my head hit the floor.

When I awoke, I looked back up the slope and immediately saw that I would never re-scale the heights. I surveyed the rest of the cavern and instantly noticed a large rock rising from the floor and nearly reaching the ceiling of the cavern. Its sides were neither smooth nor steep, making it very easy to climb. Most people in the cavern were far from it, wandering around the open spaces, aimless. Some of the crowd gathered at the base of the rock, looking up its sides and thinking. A very few actually had scaled the rock and now stood, seemingly victorious, at its top. As I looked, I saw that I recognized many of the people, including my family. I realized that I must have been here for a very long time, and that the watchmen had now brought my whole family. There were no words spoken throughout the cavern, as if in anticipation of something about to happen. Suddenly, a voice rang out through the cavern.

“The Dragon is coming!”

 

 

Perspective

What you see is hardly real.

I looked up, not really knowing where the voice came from. Since classes had been over for many hours now, my friends had long since left my side, and I was sitting by myself, musing. My first thoughts turned to the Matrix and I chuckled at the idea that everything I saw was purely a figment of my imagination. I knew that wasn’t true.

Look deeper.

“What do you mean?” I asked nobody in particular. “Wouldn’t it be better said look closer?”

Look deeper.

So I did. The sun faded slightly, and all the buildings became semi-transparent; the whole world looked as though I were squinting at it, but the people I could see perfectly clearly. Suddenly, a thin, stick-figure of a computer nerd changed into a great giant, solid and unmovable. The faded books that he always had with him grew and solidified into an enormous mace- his weapon. 
The president of the student body, a charismatic, fit fellow suddenly morphed into a weak little man, hardly able to drag himself along. I saw myself, a “bright” engineering student as a fat slob, laid back with an enormous stomach to top off my bedraggled, unshaven face.

This is the realm of the mind. Greatness here is not defined by the physical.

And it was true. The professors had all grown somewhat, but there were students greater than they were. Many people that I thought were great suddenly became insignificant, but even more that I had counted unworthy of my attention were suddenly dominating the campus.

It was slightly unnerving.

Look deeper.

“Deeper?” I asked. “Why? I don’t like it the way it is now. You’ve thrown everything out of perspective.”

Your perspective was wrong. It still is.

I looked down at my enormous beer-belly of a mind and thought to myself “Surely it can’t get any worse.”

And I looked deeper.

What little sunshine there was instantly disappeared, and I was immediately surrounded by darkness. But what I couldn’t see was made up for with my other senses. The stench that hit my nose reeked of dead and dying people. My ears were suddenly filled with moanings, screamings, and calls for help. The air was cold, and all my mental blubber couldn’t keep me warm.

“Take me out of here!” I cried. “Get me out of here!”

This too is reality. This is true. This is the correct perspective.

I was scared. The giant of the computer nerd was now lying on his back, panting for all he was worth as though some insurmountable load was crushing his chest. The student body president was writhing, as though some great pain was searing through his body. Professors that never needed any help were whimpering, looking around desperately for some help to come. And these were doing better than most. Most bodies lay scattered across the grounds, not moving at all. The world was hopeless. How would I survive? How was I surviving? What was between me and this agony that I saw everybody else in?

Then for the first time I realized that even though the air was cold, I was warm. Even though darkness engulfed me, I could see. Why?

That’s when I first saw the light. It was coming from me, and yet I knew it wasn’t mine. Then I saw other lights throughout the campus – some strong, some weak, and some flickering, threatening to go out. As I watched, time flew by. Sometimes the lights would come together, but instead of staying together in each other’s’ mutual warmth, then would then scatter and tend to those calling for help. They could never stay away from each other too long, and eventually all the light-bearers would return to each other to be warmed and encouraged.

I took the hint and ran to the fellow nearest me. He looked up as I approached, and his eyes filled with wonder as I stopped and knelt down to him. I didn’t exactly know what he needed, but I knew I had what he needed for help, and I had to give it to him.

Then suddenly, everything changed back to “normal” and I found myself, clean-shaven and well groomed once again, face to face having a conversation with “caveman”, an annoying, smart-alecky, sassy, messy engineering student.

“Pooh,” I thought. “I’m leaving this conversation as fast as I possibly can. Why should I waste my time talking with him?”

Have Mercy!

Alright, so that title has a dual meaning.

First off, I apologize with great fullsomeness of heart (brownie points for recognizing that quote) for the great delay between posts. Life has become hectic and I have not made this as great a priority as I should. I shall resume regular posts on the third day of the month of May anno domine two-thousand-and-thirteen.
The second meaning comes from a great devotional I heard from a friend about how the true Christian interacts with God. Our prayers today so often are "Lord, I want ___, I want ___, oh, yeah, help me to influence people for You. Amen."

What? How do we act this way? What possessed us to think that God is this genie who has nothing better to do than give us our petty desires and "needs" like a good grade on a test, a good day, or that job that I really wanted. Psalms 51:1-3 says


1) Have mercy upon me, O God,
According to Your lovingkindness;
According to the multitude of Your tender mercies,
Blot out my transgressions.
2) Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
And cleanse me from my sin.
3) For I acknowledge my transgressions,
And my sin is always before me

Many of our prayers and interactions with God should be a heart-felt asking for forgiveness since we have messed up, hence not serving Him as well as we could have. Instead of asking Him for our petty comforts, maybe we should ask Him to better let us serve Him. That should be our focus, not “I want… I want… I want…”



Oh, and a side note having nothing to do with mercy… I start working as an intern at Hewlett-Packard today. Wahoo!

The Prison - Part 3

It took my eyes a second to adjust to the light, but soon they did. There was a line of people in front of me, all grasping something in their bound hands. I saw some carrying bags of gold, others grasped documents that indicated they had studied at universities, while a few held letters of appreciation for acts of kindness.

I held nothing.

Up at the front of the line, there was a gatekeeper, and as each person came up to his desk, he would run his finger up and down a ledger, sometimes turning pages back and forth, then look up and say something to the prisoner. Then he would gesture toward a large, gaping hole in the wall from which came an eerie red glow.

As I neared the desk, I began to overhear the conversations that the gatekeeper had with the prisoners. One lady holding a large sack of money approached him.

“Name?” He asked.

“Olivia Affluent.” She replied.

He ran his finger up and down the ledger, turned two pages, and finally appeared to settle on her name.

“Ah yes.” He said. “Brought here by the watchman Drowning, yes?”

“Yes, but there was a mistake.” She began, her voice rising in tone and urgency with every word. “I had the money, I should have been allowed to sail where I did.”

“Money does not allow you to avoid arrest.” The gatekeeper replied.

“I will pay you to let me out of here.” She offered.

“Even if I did accept your money, it wouldn’t allow you to leave. Once committed to prison, only the King can allow you exodus.”

“But I’ve paid my taxes and much more!” She was nearly screaming now. “Surely the King will look kindly upon that and let me go free!”

“Is your money all you brought to the prison?” He asked, ever calm.

“Yes! It’s all I have!” She replied, but in a less screaming, but more pleading voice.

“Well,” The gatekeeper replied. “I have no word here from the King to release you.” He said gesturing to the ledger. “I’m afraid you must still enter.”

“No!” She screamed, and though she tried to run from the gaping doorway, the ground heaved and rolled and threw her through the open hole.

“You cannot escape the prison.” The gatekeeper commented to nobody in particular. “Once here, the prison itself will keep you here. Next!”

And with that, I walked up to the desk, holding my breath in anticipation.

How Does a Bored Tutor Spend the Time?

Why, proving the quadratic formula, of course!

Fridays are slow, especially the beginning of the semester... so I had to do something useful! The Prison Story will be finished, I've just had a lot of intervening ideas since then...

Neat Song

Have you ever heard a song that sounds like a prayer? I mean, there are the songs with lyrics that sound like a prayer, but the music doesn't reflect it.

I don't normally, but this morning I flipped the radio to the local "Christian Music" station, wondering if perhaps there was something good on (note the quotations earlier in the sentence), and I heard this song.

My first reaction when the words started was to reach for my cap, which I always remove whenever praying. It was completely reactionary - when I started to sing along, it felt just like a prayer. I have never had a song do that to me before. Hope that this song is refreshing to you as much as it was to me.

Note - I cannot necessarily reccomend any other songs that this group sings, but this one is amazing

The Prison - Part 2

We didn't walk very far before we came to a long, low structure.  It was dreary, very long, and no more than six feet high, though at one end, there was a tower. There were no windows, but one gate stood at the end facing me.

“I had no idea the prison was so close.” I remarked to the watchman as we walked.

“The prison is closer than any man knows.” He replied. “And even though you have passed this way before, you could not see, much less enter the prison until I came for you.”

“Are you the only watchman?” I asked.

“No.” He replied, “My name is Unexpected. I come whenever the warden sends, and am the swiftest and most sporadic in the arrests I make. There,” He said pointing to another watchman leaving the prison, “Is Sickness.  He often goes and arrests those whose bodies have succumbed to some ailment. Drowning often arrests those who swim without permission. There are also the watchmen War, Starvation, and Accident, to name a few.”

“What funny names.” I commented.

“We have dreary lives, and people fear us. Though in reality, they ought to fear the prison to which we take them. We are merely the routes whereby the Warden calls the people to the prison.”

“Does everybody go to the prison? Has everybody committed crimes so atrocious to be confined for life to the prison?”

“To answer your questions in order,” He answered with no trace of emotion in his voice. “I know only two who have never gone to the prison, though that was long ago. Everybody is committed to this prison, though the time spent here is actually very short.”

“What do you mean?” I asked. We were now at the front gate

“You will see as soon as you are inside. Now, I must bind your hands. If you have anything you must have in your hands, retrieve it now.”

I knew what he meant. I reached into my jerkin pocket and took out a small parchment of paper. On the bottom was signed my name, as well as the King’s. On it, I had declared that I truly believed that the Rock could save me. I handed it to the watchman, who looked at it, nodding.

“Is this all you need?” He asked.

“Yes.” I replied.

He then bound my hands, rolled up the document and sealed it, and opened the door.

“Enter.” He said. “I will deliver this document to the King.”